Russians and the American right started plotting in 1995. We have the notes from the first meeting.

CASEY MICHEL at Think Progress

https://thinkprogress.org/history-of-christian-fundamentalists-in-russia-and-the-us-a6bdd326841d/amp/

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The thing that attracted Preston to Putin was the “rebuilding and building anew of churches in Russia,” he told ThinkProgress. “Since he came into power, there have either been renovated, refurbished, or built anew almost 10,000 churches across the country.”

After all, Preston added, Putin himself was “God-sent,” appointed by the “divine.”

Preston spent the 1990s and 2000s traveling throughout Russia when he could — larger cities like Moscow, smaller enclaves like Vladimir — to see these new churches, which to him represented a country returning to its religious roots. He talked with his Russian partners, and spoke multiple times in the Russian Duma. “Rather than go out to a bar on K Street, like you might do in [Washington] or something, we went to church, man,” he recalled.

During this time, Preston kept up with his work in Tennessee — including helping lead multiple re-election campaigns for Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) — but he felt an increasing pull, as he said, to Putin’s “morality.”

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